Super PI

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1e

Developer Homepage: http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/Pi/Super_Pi.html

Product Homepage: http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/Pi/Super_Pi.html

Developed by some folks from the University of Tokyo (yes, Japan), Super PI is a small utility that does just as the name implies. It figures PI to a set number of decimal places. Since PI is an infinite number to the right of the decimal point, the utility measures the time it takes to figure a set number of places. It runs the calculations a set number of times and gives a time for the completion of the task. This is a simple and effective way to measure the raw number crunching power of the processor being used to compile the results.

Here we see that the Core 2 Quad manages to eat at Super PI better than the Core 2 Duo thanks to its extra two cores and larger combined cache size.